This disc offers a selection of compositions by Georgi Alexandrovich Mushel, the former Professor of Composition at the Conservatory of Tashkent became one of the first true exponents of Uzbek music. Also a gifted painter, he found inspiration in many forms of art, including the architecture of Samarkand, the ancient Islamic city. The music of his Samarkand Suite represents the many different elements of the site, such as the Deserted Hills surrounding the city and the monuments shown in their full splendour thanks to the Rising Sun.

The disc also contains the Uzbekistan Suite, beginning with the beautiful Aria and ending with a sprightly Toccata, as well as the Six Pieces for organ, and Elegy -- originally written for piano. Benjamin Saunders is Director of Music at Leeds Cathedral; his performances have been praised by Organists' Review for their "spirit and commitment".

Other information:
- New recording (2012) on the Grand Organ of Leeds Cathedral, by its titular organist Benjamin Saunders.First and only complete recording of this body of music.
- Georgi Mushel (1909-1989) was an Uzbek composer and painter. His great love for his home country he expressed in his paintings and his compositions, which are inspired by the rich traditions and music of Uzbekistan. His music is picturesque, colourful and often exuberant in its vivid depiction of nature and folklore.
- The Toccata from the Uzbekistan Suite is a popular showcase of organ virtuosity, and is played in its original version, a vibrant celebration of Soviet happiness and optimism!
- Contains notes on the composer and works.

Einaudi: Waves, The Piano Collection, Composer Ludovico Einaudi, Artist Jeroen van Veen piano, Format 7 CD, Ludovico Einaudi's aesthetic of emptiness has won him legions of fans worldwide, and Jeroen van Veen's survey of the piano music which is central to Einaudi's style belongs with his survey of minimalists including Glass and Nyman who are less concerned in music as an expressive language than as a commercial artefact. Likewise, his listeners absorb the music less in the sense of engaging with meaning than as backdrop to activity or release from stress. The works on this compendious collection are nearly all 'songs' of between 3 and 7 minutes, with the influence from pop culture that this brevity implies, and sharing with the pop world an economically aware employment of simplicity and repetition so as not unduly to tax the attention-span of the consumer. As Jeroen van Veen remarks, 'Contrary to ordinary classical music, minimal music demands little of the listener but to escape life's troubles for a moment; no comprehensive musical structures ask their full attention.' All his compositions are more or less based on the music he heard when he was a child, when his mother played Chopin Preludes. Einaudi (grandson of the politician Luigi Einaudi) loved the almost hypnotic soft sound of the upright piano. Because of her he started to play the piano and tried to find his own way. The melody (if there is any at all) always goes down, hardly leaving the classical path of harmonies. His music is ambient, calm, meditative and often introspective, drawing on minimalism and contemporary pop. Ludovico Einaudi may well become the "Satie of the 21st century". His minimalist, deceptively simple piano works reach a massive audience well beyond the strict boundaries of traditional classical music. CDs with his music break sales records, the hypnotic calmness of his works being the perfect recipe against modern world's stress and fatigue. Einaudi's piano works fit in logically with Jeroen van Veen's survey of Minimalist Piano Music, and this 7-CD set is the most substantial collection available at present.

Frid's best known work is his chamber opera the Diary of Anne Frank for solo soprano and an instrumental group of nine. In stark, sinister and elegiac colors he expresses the fear, hope, anger and resignation which make Anne Frank's diary a universal message of humanity. Anne's story is brought to life by soprano Eva Ben Zvi, who won rave reviews for her interpretation of this demanding role. The performance is underpinned by the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra and conductor Andrey Chistiakov.

Written with typical haste in just five days - 12-16 September 1851 - and burning with the fire of inspiration, Schumann's First Violin Sonata Op.105 expresses the composer's interior tension with particular clarity, moving between the drive and doubt which he encapsulated with two mock-literary archetypes, Florestan and Eusebius. All three violin sonatas date from the years shortly before his breakdown, attempted suicide and subsequent committal to the asylum at Endenich where he spent his last days, forbidden to compose and deprived of his beloved Clara's company. That is not to say that the first two sonatas are in any way weak works, even if Schumann himself commented with the deadpan irony usually more associated with his young friend Brahms, 'I don't care for the first violin sonata, so I wrote a second, which I hope has turned out better'. Whatever the motivation, it is certain that Schumann, in spite of his fragile psychological condition, found creative energy to complete another impassioned chamber work in a very short time. As in the first sonata, in this work the febrile expressive and introverted language seems to escape from the typical style of the salons to a restless expression even in the slow movement, where violin and piano converse in an incessant and obsessive way. This is even more true of the densely polyphonic Third Sonata, which perhaps more than the previous two reveals the demons at Schumann's shoulder, but the composer's particular gift for the swift movement of chamber music lifts all the sonatas from the intricately circular movement which afflicts the heavier textures of other late music for larger forces such as the Mass. The pianist Marco Venturi contributes fine booklet notes to this new recording, in which he is partnered by Andrea Cortesi; this is their second recording for Brilliant Classics, following a disc which could hardly be more different in tone or aesthetic, of music by Philip Glass, Giya Kancheli and Erkki-Sven Tüür (BC94814). These wonderful violin sonatas, written a few years before his death in an asylum, belie the dictum that "Schumann started as a genius, and ended as a talent". These are works by a passionate genius, highly original, full of feverish energy, childlike wonder and contemplation. Included are the sonatas Op.105 and 121, as well as the posthumous sonata in A minor WoO27. Played with total commitment, in imaginative and improvisatory style, true to Schumann's flights of fancy and romantic spirit, by two Italian musicians, Andrea Cortesi and Marco Venturi, who recorded to international critical acclaim works by Kancheli, Tüur and Glass for Brilliant Classics (BC94814).

Mozart: Complete Pianoforte Works

Francesco Cilea went into history as the composer of one opera, Adrienne Lecouvreur. However, this late romantic Italian left a fine oeuvre of solo piano music, which is presented completely on these two CDs. The piano works are wonderfully evocative character pieces, full of subtlety and finesse, in the style of early Debussy. One of the best pieces, Acque correnti, is a Ravelian study in sonority and instrumental glitter. Cilea’s works for piano four hands are also included in this comprehensive recording. Italian pianist Pier Paolo Vincenzi plays with great clarity and feeling for the atmosphere of these colorful piano pieces. He already recorded piano works by Wagner, and the Complete Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli for Brilliant Classics.

Roffredo Caetani (1871-1961) was born into a noble family in Italy. His godfather was nobody less than Franz Liszt, who first recognized his musical talent, and who entrusted him to the care of his own pupil Sgambati. Caetani’s first string quartet was written when he was eighteen years old, modeled on the middle quartets by Beethoven. Twenty years later he wrote his second string quartet, an homage to his great inspiration Franz List. The work is in one continuous movement using the Hungarian scale, lending a unity to the melodic material. The Alauda Quartet was founded in 2011 by students at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Since then they have performed in such venues as the Purcell Room of the Queen Elisabeth Hall and the church of St. Martin In The Fields.

Although he was born in Hannover, Friedrich Kuhlau (1786-1832) studied music in Denmark, and lived out his career there, becoming known as an important national composer.; Kuhlau’s style foreshadows the Romantic movement with its dissonances and harmonic changes, while still being firmly rooted in 17th century classicism.; This new release features Kuhlau’s violin sonatas op. 79, as well as two works for piano 4-hands.; These works are performed on period instruments by violinist Giorgio Leonida Tosi and pianist Paolo Porto.

This release presents the best music of Ludovico Einaudi, whose aesthetic of emptiness has won him legions of fans worldwide, and Jeroen van Veen’s survey of the piano music which is central to Einaudi’s style belongs with his survey of minimalists including Glass and Nyman who are less concerned in music as an expressive language than as a commercial artefact. Likewise, his listeners absorb the music less in the sense of engaging with meaning than as backdrop to activity or release from stress.

Ludovico Einaudi may well become the “Satie of the 21st century”. His minimalist, deceptively simple piano works reach a massive audience well beyond the strict boundaries of traditional classical music. CDs with Einaudi's music break sales records, the hypnotic calmness of his works being the perfect recipe against modern world’s stress and fatigue.

Other information:

– Recorded in 2013.
– Notes on the composer.
– Notes on the artist.

Stories of Mozart's musical precocity, especially centered on pianistic work, are well-known and form an integral part of our mythology around the composer. This release aims to bring wider attention to the charming opera Buffa La Finta Semplice, composed by Mozart at age 12. Full of light and elegant arias, skillful ensembles, and amusing characterizations, this recording casts the spotlight on a the delightful mind of a developing young composer.

This new release is the first ever recording of Giogio Gentili’s 12 Trio Sonatas. A famous violinist and teacher, Giorgio Gentili taught the likes of Antonio Vivaldi. He performed in the San Marco, and his compositions were popular all across Europe during the early 18th century. The Italian Soavi Affetti Baroque Ensemble performs these works on original instruments and beautifully explores this lesser-known corner of the Baroque repertoire.

DEBUSSY 12 Etudes. Estampes. Deux Arabesques. L’Isle Joyeuse • Mariangela Vacatello (pn) • BRILLIANT 94371 (76:40)


Every so often—perhaps inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’s eponymous poem—I contemplate things that might have been, and quite frequently my contemplations involve music: What would Beethoven’s 10th have sounded like? How much richer would we be today had Brahms not destroyed his early string quartets out of mortal fear of being called an epigone? Would the world be a different place had Dinu Lipatti been able to carry out his wish to record The Well-Tempered Clavier ? One of the reasons I find these questions so fascinating is because we can neither know their answer nor can we rely on what we do know to hypothesize it—after all, Beethoven’s Ninth is strikingly different from his Eighth; Brahms’s lost string quartets are forever gone; and Lipatti never got around to record a single prelude and fugue by Bach. Before hearing this new recording featuring the young pianist Mariangela Vacatello, it had never dawned on me that Debussy’s late piano works—his set of 12 Etudes for piano—present the perfect Borgesian riddle: Would Debussy have abandoned the Impressionist idiom had he lived another few years, or would we be speaking of Debussy’s Impressionism merely as a phase that eventually yielded to a new musical language?


You may be wondering how my musings about where Debussy’s music may have ended up had the composer not succumbed to cancer at age 56 relate to the task at hand. Well, I respectfully submit that they are relevant here because what I enjoyed the most about Vacatello’s recording is how exquisitely and unapologetically she conveys the striking novelty of these masterpieces. Like Mitsuko Uchida in her classic Philips recording, Vacatello does not unduly look for Impressionism in the etudes, nor does she try to tame these visionary and occasionally wild scores. She does not over-pedal, she does not soft-pedal, she does not play legato when Debussy calls for non-legato, and she does not seek to create tonal haze when the score does not call for such effects. Instead, Vacatello presents these works for what they are­—experiments with a fascinating musical language Debussy had not yet fully figured out.


In the early works, Vacatello is equally compelling. Like her compatriots Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Aldo Ciccolini, and Maurizio Pollini, Vacatello subscribes to the Italian tradition of playing Debussy, which is characterized by rhythmic precision, a stronger emphasis on primary colors, and a certain degree of level-headedness. While it is true that Vacatello’s Debussy does not soar or intoxicate like that of Samson François, I find that it is just as fascinating. I am particularly impressed with L’Isle Joyeuse , in which Vacatello (unlike many pianists who play this piece) refuses the temptation to sectionalize—and, I believe, trivialize—in favor of a cohesive narrative that slowly builds towards apotheosis. The engineering is outstanding. This recording comes with my highest recommendation. Vacatello is definitely a pianist to watch.


FANFARE: Radu A. Lelutiu

Tarquinio Merula was one of the most important composers of the Italian Early-Baroque. Active in all musical genres of his time he served the largest part of his life as maestro di cappella of the Duomo of Cremona. A harmonically refined composer with solid mastery of counterpoint (as his rich and well-known production for keyboard and instrumental ensembles displays), at once whimsical, modern and brilliant as far as the rhythmical/metrical side of his writing is concerned, Merula was certainly of the highest caliber among Italian composers of the early Baroque. This recording, which focuses on his sacred works for voice and instruments (masses excluded) displays the full wealth of his musical creativity and the surprising variety of the stylistic and formal strategies he employed in order to set the standard liturgical texts with a constantly fresh approach. The sacred Motets on this new recording are performed by 5 Italian vocal soloists, while the rich continuo is played by the Ensemble Demetrio, consisting of violins, viola, cello, culcian, viola da gamba, double bass, theorbo and organ.

Radames Gnattali, son of Italian immigrants, is one of the most popular and famous composers of his native Brazil, where he is mentioned in the same breath as Villa-Lobos. His music is the perfect fusion of the high and the low, of formally structured classical music and the vibrant multi-colored folk culture of Brazil. The 4 Concertinos for guitar and orchestra are medium-sized, 3-movement works, highly entertaining and brimming with good tunes, groovy rhythms and brilliant instrumentation: a real discovery! Played with infectious enthusiams by guitarist Marco Salcito and the Orchestra Sinfonica Abruzzese conducted by Marcello Bufalini.

The German tradition of Lieder accompanied by guitar is overlooked but surprisingly rich. Several of the great Lieder singers have recorded Schubert songs with guitar (Christoph Pregardien and Peter Schreier principal among them), and to highly expressive effect. In many ways the change of instrument draws back these songs to their medieval heritage, to the Minnesänger (minstrels, or troubadours) who fulfilled courtly functions, or at a more humble level travelled from town to town, lute slung over the back, entertaining nobles and commoners alike with tales of love and war.

It is this tradition that Patrizia Cigna and Adriano Sebastiani have tapped into with the first complete recording of the Lieder composed by Carl Maria von Weber for which he had a guitar in mind. In fact Weber, more than most of his native contemporaries, nurtured a great affection for the instrument while it was more celebrated abroad – notably in the Classical tradition by Mauro Giuliani, and we should not forget that the guitar was the first instrument of Hector Berlioz. Weber would accompany himself like a early-Romantic troubadour in his own songs, and he scored for the guitar in several of his stage-works such as Abu Hassan.

The Op.25 Lieder bring together these two strands, written as incidental music for August von Kotzebue’s one-act play Der arme Minnesänger (The Poor Minstrel). Some of the songs here such as the Op.13 set and the Op.29 Canzonettas were written with either keyboard or guitar accompaniment in mind, for obvious, commercially attractive reasons, but the standalone Mayenblümelein was only ever intended for the guitar, as was the lovely, polyphonic Sagt, woher stammt Liebeslust which calls for two sopranos, a three-voice female choir, and a guitar accompaniment. These, like several other songs on this recording, have no rivals in the current catalogue, making this a new recording an essential acquisition for all lovers of Romantic Lieder.

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REVIEW:

The songs are utterly charming, lyrical and dramatic, on a par with Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte and early Schubert songs. The guitar freely and independently interacts with the melodic lines, never being a mere accompaniment.

– Records International

Classical Music

Hungarian pianist, Klara Wurtz, one of Brilliant Classics's most prolific artists brings us a delightful collection sure to enchant children of all ages. Piano Music for Children features such instantly recognizable classics as Beethoven's Fur Elise and Mozart's Alla turca alongside some classic works lesser known to the average listener such as Tchaikovsky's Album for the Young, Robert Schumann's playful Kinderszenen, and Debussy's Children's Corner. Wurts is joined by the orchestral players of Prima La Musica for the well known andante from Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21, rounding out this varied collection sure to delight young and old alike.

From Mozart to Leoncavallo: three hours of opera's greatest hits in rhythmically buoyant, highly enjoyable East-German recordings. Taped between 1959 (Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer) and 1993 (Die Fledermaus), a collection of overtures gets this operatic compilation off to a (literally) flying start. Suitner in particular directs deliciously sprung performances of Humperdinck (Hansel und Gretel), Smetana (The Bartered Bride) and Suppé (Dichter und Bauer / Poet and Peasant and Leichte Kavallerie / Light Cavalry). The Austro-Germanic angle of the first half of the release is widened on the second half by a selection of opera choruses that represents some of the most powerful moments of 19th-century Italian opera. There is the triumphant hymn in praise of Egypt from the second act of Aida as well as the sublime song of pride and defiance, 'Va pensiero', that crowns Nabucco and became before long the unofficial anthem of the Risorgimento and the struggle for Italian unification. Verismo choruses are here too, taken from that evergreen pairing of Pagliacci and Cavelleria rusticana. Favourite German operatic choruses include the Chorus of Guests in Wagner's Tannhäuser as well as the hymn of the priests in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. Suitner directs all these: a compilation album made in Berlin in 1978. He also exercises a subtle guiding hand over the Staatskapelle Dresden for a compilation of tenor/baritone opera duets recorded in 1972 with the two foremost East-German male singers of their generation, Peter Schreier and Theo Adam. 'Expectably' commented Fanfare, 'the results are echt Deutsch' - even if the repertoire itself again covers Smetana, Gounod and Verdi as well as Mozart and Lortzing, with all the numbers sung in German and 'performed with zest'.

String quartets came into their own in the latter half of the 18th century, and this brand new genre became an irresistible temptation to many composers, not least the young Italian Bartolomeo Campagnoli. The six quartets featured on this disc are bursting with vitality and innovation, as Campagnoli’s penchant for playful melodic lines (especially in the first violin) comes thrillingly to the fore. The composer’s roots in northern Italy, particularly in Padua and Florence, were carried with him as he travelled around northern Europe, settling at various points in Stockholm, Dresden and Hanover. This led to Campagnoli’s own assertion that he combined ‘German learnedness with Italian soul’, a truly pleasurable mixture perfectly suited to the string quartet genre.

Ensemble Symposium are experts in Campagnoli’s repertoire, with founder Simone Laghi currently preparing a critical edition of the composer’s six string quartets for publication in the USA. The group’s masterful and compelling performance is a testament to their extensive historical studies, as they strive to create a strong link between research and active interpretation, with striking results.

Other information:
- Recorded in 2014.
- First recording of the string quartets by Campagnoli.
- Bartolomeo Campagnoli (1751-1827) learned his trade with famous Italian musicians Tartini and Nardini. As a virtuoso on the violin he traveled Europe, where he held several important posts in Freising (Bavaria), Dresden and Stockholm, before settling as Kapellmeister of the famous Gewandhausorchester in Leipzig.
- Campagnoli claimed for himself “the german learnedness with Italian soul”, and his string quartets, the relatively new and “hot” genre of his days (with Joseph Haydn as the supreme creator and master), abound in lyrical melodies set into the firm musical structures of the first Viennese School.
- Simone Laghi, leader of the Ensemble Symposium, did extensive research into the music of Campagnoli, and prepares its first Edition. Their masterful performances breath historical insight and pure delight in the music’s originality.
- Extensive liner notes written by Simone Laghi.
- Contains artist biography.

Florentine composer Castelnuovo-Tedesco contributed a vast array of music to the guitar literature. This engaging release celebrates his output for two guitars, drawing focus to what is perhaps the repertoire’s most awe-inspiring collection: the cycle of 24 preludes and fugues.

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REVIEW:

This is really great music. It’s inventive, expressive, exciting— truly joyous stuff. Duo Pace Poli Capelli’s performances here are truly excellent. Ensemble is perfect, with a delightful inventiveness and loads of technical finish.

– MusicWeb International

Here's a genuine rarity: Ferdinand Rebay (1878-1953) has been hitherto unknown outside a small circle of guitar connoiseurs, but that should change thanks to this attractive set of sonatas and dances, all receiving their first recordings at the hands of two talented young Italian musicians. Rebay was Viennese born and bred. In 1901 he entered the piano class of Joseph Hofmann at the Vienna Conservatory and studied composition with the eminent pedagogue Robert Fuchs, who counted Mahler, Wolf, Sibelius and von Zemlinsky among his students.

Four years later, when leaving the Conservatory with a distinction in composition, Rebay's catalogue already numbered around 100 works, including a piano concerto dedicated to Prof. Hofmann. He continued to compose prolifically, mainly in the area of vocal music, pro-ducing around 100 choral works, 400 Lieder and two operas. After the Anschluss in 1938, Rebay lost his teaching positions as well as his pension and was reintegrated only in 1945, a few months before his definite retirement. Rebay's interest in writing for the guitar was triggered by his niece, the guitarist Gerta Hammerschmid (1906-1985) and by her teacher, his friend and colleague at the Musikakademie, Jakob Ortner (1879-1959), who probably introduced him to the technical possibilities of the instrument. He died, almost forgotten, in Vienna in 1953.

Among Rebay's most ambitious and important guitar works are the duos for guitar and a string or wind instrument. Substantial works, with a duration between 15 and 25 minutes, these duos have no match in the guitar repertoire; the Sonatas on this disc are among their number, and complemented by stylish arrangements made by Rebay of several of Beethoven's German Dances. The scarce original repertoire for clarinet and guitar, limited during the 19th century essentially to Heinrich Neumann's six serenades is almost trebled by Rebay's substantial contribution.

OTHER INFORMATION:
- World Premiere Recordings
- Detailed booklet notes on Rebay's life and work
- www.luigimagistrelli.com

Of all Cristiano Porqueddu’s adventurous guitar-music surveys on record for Brilliant Classics, the latest may be the most invaluable and enlightening for listeners who may never even have suspected that Russia had a rich guitar tradition of its own. As a detailed booklet essay complementing this new recording explains, the guitar flourished during the first half of the 19th century in Russia. Towards the turn of the 20th century, it became more of a folk instrument, a trend further exaggerated by the cultural demands of the Russian revolution which repurposed both instruments and musicians to vernacular ends for songs and marches to raise the spirits. However, a renaissance took place in classical guitar composition following the triumphant tour of Andres Segovia across Soviet Russia in 1926. The impact of that event may be felt not only in the work of Boris Asafiev, who saw Segovia play, but even two generations later in the Hispanic flair of Edison Denisov’s Sonata, with its edgy opening Toccata, gently swaying Berceuse and picture-postcard ‘Souvenir d’Espagne’; in itself this revives the kind of naturalistic love-affair of Russian artists with the country that had produced Glinka’s Jota aragonesa and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol. But there is much more here than picture-postcard imitation and love in a cold climate. Local Georgian rhythms and traditions may be savoured in the sonata of Gherman Dzhaparidze; there are two early, vibrant miniatures of Sofia Gudaidulina; the work of more guitar-specialised composers such as Vitaly Kharisov, Valeri Kikta and Viktor Kozlov is much less well-known outside their native land. To all of them Cristiano Porqueddu brings the technical mastery and interpretative conviction which has distinguished his work for Brilliant Classics, in boxes such as the set of 20th-century guitar sonatas (BC9455) which includes an earlier recording of the First Sonata by Evgeny Baev

This is a unique coupling on record, but a perceptive and satisfying one: a trio of Romantically inclined serenades from composers of Northern Europe, writing in the last decades of the 19th century when the drive to define a Nationalist spirit through culture was at its height. And so these works are distinctively, variously Russian, Czech and English in their different ways, while never relinquishing a debt to the German tradition in which their composers were to a greater or lesser degree educated. The Ferruccio Busoni Chamber Orchestra have previously appeared on Brilliant Classics with their music director Massimo Belli in an album of viola concertos by Alessandro Rolla. The orchestra celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2015. Many of their previous releases have received five-star reviews from the Italian press.

The first Recording of the complete songs by Dallapiccola, one of the most influential composers of 20th century Italy. His political engagement and his experiments with the 12-tone technique established him firmly in the European Avant-Garde. The main work on this double CD are the transcriptions he made of 17th and 18th century Italian songs, by Monteverdi, Caldara, Carissimi, Caccini, Durante, Stradella, Legrenzi and others. He wrote brilliantly dry and essential, making intelligent use of counterpoint and canon, with exquisite taste for vocal timbres and polyrhythm. In that sense they are far more "20th century" than similar transcriptions by other composers (Respighi, Busoni a.o.) who romanticized the original early works. Also included are the two original song cycles by Dallapiccola: Rencesvals and Quattro Liriche di Antonio Machado, fascinating testimony of his unique style, both severe and warmly emotional. Beautifully performed by 4 excellent Italian singers who already recorded successfully the songs by Jolivet and Ravel. Scholarly written liner notes by the pianist, Filippo Farinelli.

Robert de Visee (1655-1733) was a French lutenist, guitarist, and composer who worked as a chamber musician to Louis XIV, often playing lute or guitar at the king's bedside. This collection of suites was published in Paris in 1716, the recording project of which, helmed by recorder player Manuel Starpoli, is completed in this volume. Manuel Staropoli thoughtfully performs on an array of eight different instruments throughout, each tailored in tessitura and tone color to the particular dance being performed, and is accompanied by an authentic continuo ensemble of the orbo, viola da gamba, and harpsichord. Starpoli's performance particularly highlights de Visee's gift for the composition of tunes of simple beauty, which is made clear in the performance of one suite entirely with solo flute.